A Free-Market Energy Blog

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: April 6, 2020

By -- April 6, 2020

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy, environmental, and education policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every two± weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:
Crises and the collectivist temptation
13 Petroleum Products Crucial to the COVID-19 Pandemic
We gambled on the wrong threat — climate change
COVID-19 and Climate Change: The Parallels
The Coronavirus Pandemic vs the Climate Emergency
Massachusetts v.

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Stimulus IV: Last Chance for the Green New Deal?

By -- April 2, 2020

Don’t forget that just before the World was upended by coronavirus, we had another deep-decarbonization electrification bill: the 555-page American Energy Innovation Act (AEIA). 

Since “clean energy” unfairly discriminates against the leading (and clean) alternatives to electricity, this is contrary to the best interests of free markets and providing affordable energy for consumers.

Yes; another “stimulus” bill is possible and perhaps even likely. Expect Nancy Pelosi’s “Green New Deal” to be part of this effort given that the Senate and the President said NO to subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines in the CARES Act

Numerous special interests didn’t get their piece of the pie and were promised another shot in order to move the CARES Act out of the Senate.  It’s all politics, not consumer economics, for the pack of lobbyists in an election year, trading campaign contributions for legislative favors.…

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Business Cronyism as Plunder: Bastiat Revisited

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 1, 2020

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

“Legal plunder has two roots: one of them … is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy.” 

“What is freedom? It is the sum total of freedoms. To be free, under one’s own responsibility, to think and act, to speak and write, to work and trade, to teach and learn, that alone is to be free.” 

A major subject at MasterResource is cronyism in the wind-power, solar-power, ethanol, battery, carbon capture and storage, and electric-vehicle industries. To this end, timeless wisdom pertaining to special government favor to politically adept businesses, aka corporate welfare, is worth repeating.

With the current Pandemic, notice how not only the government-dependent wind and solar industries but also conventional energies are lined up trying to get their share of government largess.…

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Rent Seeking Goes Viral (competing energies seek special favor)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 31, 2020
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Fossil-fuel BP vs. Fossil Fuels (a contra-capitalist company at work)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 30, 2020
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Green New Deal 2: “A Green Stimulus to Rebuild Our Economy” (the intellectual virus continues)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 26, 2020
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The SPR: Consumer ‘Insurance’ or Producer Cronyism? (time to privatize)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 25, 2020
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“How Embarrassing. This Is a National Emergency” Wind and Solar try a 11th hour sneak

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 24, 2020
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Energy & Environmental Newsletter: March 23, 2020

By -- March 23, 2020
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Obama’s Trumpian Oil Moment Eight Years Ago

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 20, 2020
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